Way back in my teens I read a book called “From Primitives to Zen,” which was a compendium of texts from the world’s religious traditions, compiled by Mircea Eliade. If you haven’t heard of Eliade, he was a well-known and influential Romanian historian of religion who was Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. His book provided one of my earliest exposures to the Buddha’s teachings, since one whole section comprised extracts of the early Buddhist scriptures.

Buddhism, I quickly discovered, liked lists. The reason for this is that Buddhism arose at a time when nothing sacred was written down. The safest place for the preservation of important information was, people …

I was in the thick of putting together my online course, “Love Your Enemies,” when the coronavirus crisis became serious. As a result I’ve felt a little late in responding to what’s going on right now. I plan to start a new course this month called something like “Meditating In a Crisis.” But today I want to share just a few thoughts on that topic, using the Buddha’s Eightfold Path as a framework.

If you’re not familiar with the eightfold path, it’s a comprehensive system of practices that help us move from ignorance to Awakening, from suffering to peace.

The path is not eightfold in the sense that it’s eight stages to be followed, one …

Someone wrote the other day saying that she’d had a hard time forgiving a colleague at work who had reflexly shot down her very excellent ideas. Apparently this colleague does this a lot. It’s just a habit with her.

My correspondent found her colleague’s actions very hurtful. She struggled with resentment for several days as she worked on practicing forgiveness and on cultivating metta. (Metta is “lovingkindness,” or simply kindness). Eventually she was successful, and she managed to forgive her critic. So that’s excellent! Practice works!

The thing is it took her a long time to find her way back to peace. And I think her story highlights something that’s missing from many people’s …

In a series of posts I’m explaining, using teachings from the early Buddhist teachings, how we can free ourselves from addiction to social media. These teachings are found in the Vitakkasanthana Sutta, which outlines five strategies for overcoming compelling trains of thought and the urges that accompany them.

In the first talk we looked at the tool of turning our attention to something skillful. In the second talk we looked at the tool of seeing the drawbacks of obsession.

One thing I should point out is that the Buddha’s advice is to work through these tools in order. If redirecting the mind to what’s positive doesn’t work for us, then we try seeing the drawbacks …

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If …

In a series of posts (here’s a link to Part 1) I’m explaining, using teachings from the early Buddhist teachings, how we can free ourselves from our addiction to social media. These teachings are found in the Vitakkasanthana Sutta, which outlines five strategies for overcoming compelling trains of thought and the urges that accompany them.

“Vitakkasanthana Sutta” literally means “the Discourse on Quieting Thinking,” but I’m going to call it “the Social Media Sutra.” I do this mainly because it’s a more convenient and catchy monicker than a literal translation is, but also because it reminds us that these teachings can be directly applied in this important aspect of our lives.

By …